HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—MAIN STREET, SUMMER AFTERNOON, 1946
A Black and White cab pulled up alongside the sidewalk, next to a newsstand containing prominent copies of both the Salt Lake Tribune and the Huntsville Gazette. Twenty-five-year-old Clara appeared depressed and weary as she got out of the cab. For a moment, she stared at the address held in her hand and then looked up toward the storefronts, which were situated just behind the newsstand. Finding her bearings, she walked past several of the buildings toward her destination.
Finally, she came to the Ambassador Hotel and walked inside. Scattered throughout the lobby were a number of plush and worn red velvet furnishings. Across from the reservation counter, an ornate staircase led to the hotel’s upper levels. Clara took a seat in one of the chairs facing a large velvet couch and waited. Emily had told her that she would come straight to the lobby after work.
“What am I doing here?” Clara sighed to herself and then added: “There was nowhere else to go.”
Clara was exhausted. She felt emotionally drained from the divorce, and having to leave Paul. It had also been devastating to leave behind the rest of her family, Samaria City, and everything she had known. But there was no way she could have stayed with Paul in the vicinity.
“For several reasons,” Clara muttered to herself.
Because she was tired, she propped her head up with one arm resting on the chair. She took a deep breath and looked at the red couch across from her. She felt her eyes start to look sideways at it, but was just too tired to move. The couch began to blur, as though one copy after another started to appear one behind the other. Suddenly, all she could see was a tremendous flash of light.
FORT LARAMIE, WYOMING—BORDELLO ROOM, 1852
As another red velvet couch came into view, the transparent form of twenty-five-year-old Clara Stuart, formerly Mrs. Paul Gabriel, suddenly realized that she was watching the intimacy between two naked figures lying entwined upon the couch. Although looking sideways had enabled her to see “private business” many times previously—such as the time she had looked in on Paul Gabriel while he was standing wearing nothing but his birthday suit in the boys’ locker room—she had never before seen anything quite so personal. The woman had her legs wrapped so tightly around the man’s naked waist that it appeared she was fearful he would pull out before the time was right. Suddenly, the woman’s soft moans caused Clara to blush and she diverted her eyes elsewhere to give the couple some measure of privacy. It became immediately obvious that she was no longer in 1946.
Even though the light sneaking through the drawn drapes suggested it was midday, Clara could see that the room was very different than the one her conscious mind had just left behind. There was no light switch, no light bulbs, and no appearance of anything having to do with electricity. The dresser might have been considered old fashioned, even when Clara had been a child. By the same standard, the lantern appeared old, as well. The dresser had an old mirror behind it, enabling Clara to see her ghostly reflection. The rest of the furnishings were quaint, all wood, and seemed like they were the product of a handyman, rather than a manufacturer. In one corner of the room, a sleeping baby lay quietly in its crib. The couple’s clothing had been quickly discarded and thrown next to the bed. The coonskin cap and the hide jacket made it apparent that the man was some kind of a trapper. The woman’s dress could only belong to a dancehall girl.
It was immediately obvious to Clara that she was witnessing shadows of the past, and from prior experience with things less dramatic, she knew the couple would never be able to hear her. The thought made her recall Dickens’ Christmas Carol and she whispered: “These are the shadows of things that were . . . but where and when am I?” And suddenly she knew—Fort Laramie, Wyoming in 1852.
“But why?” Clara whispered again. She had never even heard of a place called Fort Laramie.
Clara turned back to the couple and wondered who they might be. The scene between the two became more intense; the woman moaned with pleasure. As though putting his mind on other matters, the man looked up and stared in Clara’s direction. He had several days’ growth of whiskers but appeared to be quite handsome. When he was ready, his own movements began to intensify—pushing himself toward the woman and then pulling back almost to the point of withdrawal. Finally, the woman on the couch let her head fall back over the couch’s armrest. Clara gasped and held her breath.
Clara was staring at a woman who appeared to be her identical twin. In fact, there could be no doubt—she was staring at herself! With that awareness, Clara Stuart suddenly realized that she had once lived in Wyoming as a dancehall girl, and that her name at the time had been Esther.
HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—SUMMER MORNING, 2006
“Now, Joanie, let me tell you in the hundreds of times I had looked sideways, I had never seen anything quite so, uh . . . stimulating. Maybe the stress had finally gotten to me and I had broken through some kind of a wall that had always been there. I just don’t know. As soon as I saw those two on the couch, I knew I could have pulled back to the hotel but I was too caught up in this happening to want to go anywhere else. Maybe I should have been ashamed for the intrusion but I felt such a part of that scene that . . . well, I just felt I belonged.”
Throughout the tale, Joan had been leaning forward in her chair, “Who was the man?”
“It was your Uncle Joe, but I hadn’t met him yet. At the time of this Fort Laramie business his name had been Russell. As soon as I saw myself that day in Wyoming . . . well, a whole new understanding of the way things worked came into play. My soul had been here before. I didn’t question it. I had seen it with my own two eyes. Took me awhile before I mentioned this to anyone else either—you see, I had really been taunted at school for this whole looking sideways business and what I had just seen went way beyond that.
“Anyway, Emily came back to the hotel some time later and I followed her up to the apartment. I had just started my life as a divorced woman and here my sister Emily was still looking for a man.
“She was a beautiful woman, really,” Clara looked up at her niece and added, “she had hair the same color as yours. I just wish she could have done something about those damn, thick glasses of hers. You see, Joanie, back then we didn’t have contacts.”
HUNTSVILLE, UTAH—EMILY’S APARTMENT, 1946
In the hallway outside of Emily Stuart’s apartment, twenty-eight-year-old Emily struggled with her keys before finally getting the door to unlock: “It only works if you twist it back and forth just so.”
When the door opened, Emily ushered Clara inside the apartment, pulling her by the arm toward the couch. The apartment was sparsely furnished, although the presence of curtains on the windows and doilies on several table tops displayed Emily’s sewing skill. Her Bernina machine was also against one wall, scattered with half-sewn articles that had apparently been brought home from work. As Clara looked around the room, she nodded when she saw Annabelle, Emily’s old doll, propped up in one of the chairs.
Emily took her sister’s handbag, placed it on the coffee table and pulled Clara to the sofa, forcing her to take a seat. The table was scattered with pieces of paper that Emily had been writing on, and next to the papers a dirty ashtray appeared three-quarters full.
Clara was shocked, “You’ve taken up smoking! Mama’s gonna be fit to be tied!”
“Never mind about that. I met a man!” Emily reached toward an end table and lifted a newspaper, which had obviously been read and refolded. She held it tightly between her hands.
“Where?” Clara appeared dubious.
“He just moved into the hotel. He’s some kind of a top dog for Southern Pacific.”
“What do you know about